Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University where he has been Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College since 2000. His books include The First Crusade: The Call from the East (2012) which was described as ‘over-turning a millennium of scholarship’ (The Times) and ‘the most significant contribution to re-thinking the origins and causes of the First Crusade for a generation’ (The Times Literary Supplement). In 2015 he published The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015), which was described ‘not just the most important history book in years, but the most important in decades’ (Berliner Zeitung). It was named one of the Sunday Times Books of the Decade (2010-19) and as one of the 25 most important books translated into Chinese, alongside Pride and Prejudice and A Hundred Years of Solitude. It was stayed in the Top 10 for nine months, was #1 bestseller in the UK, India, China, the Gulf (among others) and was a New York Times Bestseller. His book, The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World (2018) was awarded the Carical Prize for Social Sciences in 2019.

Peter’s most recent book is The Earth Transformed: An Untold History (2023), which looks at the role played by climate, nature the environment since the dawn of time has been a major bestseller around the world. It was a Financial Times, Sunday Times, Le Point, Guardian Book of the Year, and The Times History Book of the Year. According to the Financial Times, ‘Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history.’

Peter’s next book, The Seventh Continent: Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, Past, Present and Future will be published in February 2027.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Geographic Society, the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute, He is also President of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. He advises governments, multi-lateral institutions including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, UNDP, UNESCO, NATO about global affairs and geopolitics. Often described as a ‘rockstar’ academic (BBC News, New Statesman, The Times, Der Spiegel), Peter has been called ‘the first great historian of the 21st century’ (DCM magazine).